Killing Hatter
by emipet111
Summary: There is a killer on the loose in Wonderland who is massacring nobles named "Hatter" and Alice believes that it is the same person who murdered her mother 12 years before.Can Alice figure out who it is and end the limbo she has been stuck in ever since?
1. Stuck in the Past

At first I felt nothing. My body floated with a sea of rainbow colored clouds in a place somewhere between awake and asleep. It almost gave me the sensation of falling, reminding me of a story my mother use to tell me.

A girl named Alice fell down a hole while chasing a white rabbit; once she hit the bottom, her head slammed hard against a sharp rock at the bottom; splitting her head open, allowing blood to ooze steadily from the wound, causing her to eventually lose consciousness. From the mixture of blood and creativity spilling from the wound there bloomed a flower. This flower swelled larger and larger from the abundance of creativity until it burst into flames. The fire was so hot that it stretched time and space. It burned for years and when the last of the heat had subsided the hole no longer existed. Instead of falling from Upperland into a hole, you fell into a new country. This was Wonderland, my home. My mother had named me Alice after the foolish girl who had fallen down the hole.

With that thought, I landed softly on a solid surface, and slowly looked around me. Nothing was seen except the rainbow colored clouds that had followed me into my dream land. Slowly, I took a few steps forward making everything solidify around me. First the rock hard ground became a soft white carpet, and then a suit of armor from a giant beaver faded into existence. Soon after, a large four poster bed, closely followed by the rest of my mother's royal suit followed suit. The last thing to emerge from the quickly dissipating fog was a woman with hip length, bone-straight hair and an elegant frame sitting in a chair by a roaring fireplace.

"Alice," a soft voice echoed through the near-empty room. "Alice," it sang again from the figures lips. So sweet like a song being sung over and over.

Maybe tonight was different, I thought to myself as I jumped into warm arms holding on tight, "Mama!" I yelled cuddling my face against her warm breast and closing my eyes against the flood of tears that threatened to break through. "I missed you, Mama. I went looking for you and I couldn't find you. Everyone said that you were gone, but I knew better." I lifted my head and opened my eyes.

The White Queen rocked lightly to and fro holding her daughter close, platinum blond hair falling around them like a veil blocking them from the world. "Alice, let's play a game."

"What kind of game, mama?"

"It's called Hide and Go Seek"

"What is tha-"The rest of my question was drowned out by a loud banging on the door, followed by voices and the Queen leaned closer, whispering in my ear.

"Alice, listen close, I'm going to count to ten. By the time I reach ten, I need you to be hidden somewhere in the room and do not come out until I come to get you. No matter what happens do not look or make any noise."

I nodded and the queen kissed my forehead. "Remember, whatever happens I love you and your sister. One day you will both be strong beautiful women capable of anything," the queen closed her eyes and sat back in her chair. "One... Two..."

I jumped from my mother's lap as another series of loud thuds echoed through the room followed by a woman's voice, "Helen! Open the door!"

I lifted the blankets from the bed and prepared to hide underneath, but was stopped short when I realized the bottom was lined with boards, blocking me from sliding under.

"Three..."

"I know you are in there!"

I went to the windows and tried to cover my body with the creamy white, floor-length curtains. After a few seconds of fumbling with them and unsuccessfully covering my body, I once again gave up on my hiding spot.

"Four... Five..." the door knob rattled with the force from blows coming on the other side of the door.

I went close to the door and tried to scramble inside of the suit of armor, custom made for a hero-beaver many years before I had been born. I climbed onto a chair sitting next to the armor and removed the head, revealing how it was empty inside. Carefully, I lifted my leg and maneuvered my body inside the suit "Six... Seven..." I pulled the helmet back into place and lowered the visor "Eight... Nine...Te-" the door flew off its hinges mere feet from me, crashing into the wall by the fireplace. Into the room walked a tall figure in break-neck high heels. Her short dress was blood stained along with the mask that covered her face. In her hand was a long butcher knife, dripping with the blood of the guard lying dead outside the door.

The white queen rose from her chair and faced the figure now striding into the room, "Now Helen, you didn't think you could keep me out forever, did you?"

"Leave my home, you power crazed wench"

"Aww! Is that any way to treat your sister, Helen?"

In the blink of an eye, the strange woman crossed the room and shoved the knife deep inside my mother's gut.


	2. Dreams and Reality

_Sorry it took so long to get back to you guys. I have been having some problems at home. Ironically, I'm in a battle to pass senior English. If I don't then I won't be able to graduate on time. So I'm sorry it took so long to post. I hope the next installment comes fast for y'all._

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><p>I let out a blood-curdling scream and sat straight up in bed. I tried to get up and run: to get help, to save mom, anything! I had to save her. For a few panic-stricken seconds I tried my best to detangle myself from the bed sheets that had managed to cocoon my restless legs. Without thinking it, I jumped off my bed and my bare feet hit the ice-cold, wooden floor beneath my bed. I yelped, jumping back onto the downy bed, finally snapping out of my dream and into the present. The cool breeze that leaked into my room through the open doorway gently dried away the perspiration that had collected over my entire body. I pulled my legs close to me for both comfort and heat from the draft. The only sound in the house was the sound of my racing heart and my sister Margaret asleep in the next room.<p>

The image of the wicked red queen stabbing my mother burned in my head; blood pouring down the queen's cream-colored dress and pooling on the floor in front of her as she sank to her knees. The look of shock that spread through first her face and then her body as she finally fell to the floor.

While softly rocking back and forth, I kept reciting to myself, "Calm down Alice. It was only a dream. Only a dream…" I repeated over and over until finally slowing to a halt. "Only a dream," I repeated as my eyes glazed over, "Mom will be home any time, I just have to wait." I climbed out of bed and started to get ready for the day, "I just have to wait."

The kitchen was just as cold and empty as every other morning. "Just wait until mom gets back," I told myself, "She will be up before me and have a fire going and food on the table". But as usual, by stomach got the best of me within a half hour and I scrounged in the cabinets for something to eat, hoping that maybe I would find some bread or something. Unfortunately, they were bare, so I turned to the fireplace where last night's soup still simmered in the pot over the hot coals my brother neglected to stomp out the night before. I grabbed the ladle that was propped up against the edge; accidentally sticking my finger in the crust that lined the handle, I licked my fingers then dunked the ladle in the soup. I listened close to see if Margaret was up; when no noise came from her room I tipped the ladle and drank the bitter tomato liquid. I knew that Margaret would be mad at me for not getting a bowl, but I didn't want to clean it. I quickly dipped it in the soup again and took another drink. I was not full, but it would hold me over until mom got home and made me breakfast; or so I thought. An hour later my stomach was rumbling again and I took another drink… and another… and another… before the entire pot was finished off. While scraping at the crusty edges of soup that were burnt to the pot itself I forgot to listen for Margaret; and I had completely forgotten about her all the way up until I heard a voice behind me. "Alice Pleasance Heart! What are you doing?"

I dropped the ladel and quickly rubbed a drop of soup off my lip before putting my hands behind my back and cheesed. "I'm not doing anything, Margaret," I lied; even though I knew that I was caught.

I sat in my chair and twitted my thumbs, which made me wonder what the tweedle's were doing right now… WHAP! Spoon on the table.

"Alice, look me in the eyes when I'm talking to you."

I snapped my eyes back up to my angered sister, "sorry," I repeated for the umpteenth time.

"You know better than to eat out of the pot by using the serving spoon. It is rude…"

"No one was here to see my bad manners"

"…And other people don't want to eat your spit"

"I finished the last of the soup anyway"

"… Exactly, and you ate the last of the soup!"

"We have more food"

"So help me god! If you talk back to me one more time, I'll shove this spoon so far up your ass, you'll have a period out of your ass every month!"

"I miss mom. Just wait until she gets back and I'll tell her how bad you have been treating me."

Margaret rubber her forehead, "Don't start with this again! I have already told you a thousand times. Mom is never coming back; she died in the fucking castle, right in front of you." She threw the spoon in the soapy pot of water and started scrubbing, "The sooner you wake up from your fantasy world, the sooner we will all be better off."

"Stop lying to me. Just because everyone else thinks that she isn't coming back doesn't mean that I won't give up on her. She is just visiting some country; she has done it a thousand times before. She just can't find a way to get home to us Margaret!"

The older sister didn't even turn from her chore, and spoke in the flattest voice ever heard, "Alice, you need to stop living in Upperland and grow up."

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Alice put on her cloak and walked out the door. I hated being the bearer of bad news every day, but Alice would never move on if I stopped reminding her about mother's death. Maybe one day it would finally stick in her head and I wouldn't need to have her blow up every morning. One day I wouldn't have to sit here and listen through another one of her reasons why mom was gone. Maybe one day Alice would decide that she was tired of playing pretend and grow up. I looked at the calendar hanging on the wall, March 1st. I sighed to myself; on the 30th was Alice's 18th birthday. She would be considered an adult, but the girl's mentality was stuck at five. How could I possibly wake her up before her coming of age ceremony?

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><p><em>Feel free to send reviewscomments/PMs :D_


	3. Just Alice

_Hey guys, I know that I haven't been keeping up on this. I keep getting distracted every time that I sit down to write. So I'll get you the next chapter as soon as I possibly can._

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><p>I kicked another rock that was in my way. It scuttled down the dirt road until it bounced off another and slowed to a halt a little further up the trail near another small rock. I did a little hop-step and kicked them both into the distance.<p>

"Mom is never coming back; she died in the castle, right in front of you." I scoffed at myself, mocking Margaret's high-pitched voice. "The sooner you wake up from your fantasy world, the sooner we will all be better off"

I laughed to myself as I thought of her with her hands on her hips, "You need to wake up from whatever dream world you're in, Alice.

"I'm not in a dream world. I'm here, always just Alice." I leaned over and spoke to another rock by my foot, "Just because the rest of the world decides that it wants to grow up and away from the truth, and the rest of the world decides it has to keep moving forward doesn't mean that I'm going with them." The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I made the same rock rickshaw off a tree.

I stopped and put my hands on my hips, mocking Margaret's stubborn stance, "I refuse to go with them. I like it here; I see no point in going somewhere better if it is perfectly fine where I am at now."

I looked down at the ground and saw another large rock laying there, I swung my leg and it flew through the air, landing in the near-by bushes. "Ooooowwwwwww!"

The bushes gave birth to a head of pink and purple striped hair topped by a set of black cat ears. a pair of black eyes glared from among the leafy branches and a feral snarl escaped from unseen lips.

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><p><em>I'm sorry it's so short guys. I promise a bigger update next time. Tell me what you think Rate/ PM/_


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